Silvertongue
by ATG-4835
Summary: Everything he did or said was a Lie because Loki himself was a Lie. /Oneshot- Character Study/


There is something wrong with him. Something very, very wrong. Loki knows this, has known this for years. He is intelligent, quick, clever. But it seems in this that he is stupid. The Fool. Those around him have known it, subconsciously, even longer than he himself has. They have known that something about him was wrong, that there he wasn't quite right. There is some sort of Sickness inside of him, something that is cruel and cold and violent and Wrong.

When he was a child, it was subtle, the way he was treated in comparison to his Brother, Thor. They were praised and scolded equally, when they were smaller. When their faults were of a childish nature, and the adults around them regarded each with a sort of paternal fondness. Thor was the Eldest, the Firstborn, the Heir to the Throne. And Loki was the Second Child. The differences became more noticeable the older they got. Whereas Thor was awarded praise for his accomplishments, Loki was only punished with Criticism.

Brave Thor. Bright Thor. Golden Thor. With his Pride and Honor and Strength and Charm. All who looked upon him loved him, and all who fought with him respected him. Love and Respect. Thor was gifted that like he was entitled. And who's to say he wasn't? Beautiful Thor. Glorious Thor. And Loki was in the shadows, a dark, cold, solemn thing, the thin shadow behind his Brother's strong form, blocked from the sun and growing sicker because of it. He had never been good enough, it seemed. The sword and shield that came so easily to his older brother felt a dead-weight in his own hand. The brutality and blunt natural of brawling seemed dirty and unflattering to him. The instructors watched over Thor with pride and satisfaction. They looked at Loki and shook their heads. Disappointing, they called him once. He was looked upon and found lacking. The All-Father, His Mother, the court, the commoners... They saw Thor and they saw beauty. They saw Loki and they saw sickness.

There was something sick inside of him. Something dark and twisted. Silvertongue, they called him. Thor was the Son of Gold. Fiery, Warm, Radiant. In a realm of Gold, to be called it's very Personification was an title few were bestowed with. Loki was the opposite. Silver was cold, it was dark and hard and spoke of the night, the freeze of winter that killed the flowers and crops and sapped the warmth.

Loki could not recall his first lie. It seemed that he always had been telling falsehoods to all around him. As a child, it was innocent, silly little lies. As an Adult, they were hard, brutal, and meant to harm or mock or strike. They were, all of them, for selfish reasons. He was Bored, He was Tired, He was in Trouble... it didn't matter what justification he tried to give himself. A Master of Lies must also be a Master of Truths. He could not lie to himself, not for long. And he was a Selfish Creature. It was part of this sickness that seemed to spread with each century of his life. He didn't know why he lied anymore. He didn't know why he couldn't give such blunt honesty like his Father and Brother and Mother could.

Loki did not think himself capable of telling the truth anymore. If he had been once, he was no longer. He knew them, he guarded the Truth to him like it was something precious. But everytime he tried to speak it, to confess, to be Truthful, it came out a Twisted and Wrong. Because Loki himself was Wrong and everything he touched or looked on or spoke became Twisted.

All his life, he had wondered why it was he was so wrong and horrible and dark. Why he wasn't like anyone else in his Realm. Why he wasn't like his Father. Why he didn't even /Look/ like him. Tarnished Silver in a room of Gold. He laid with Beasts, slept with Beasts, and bore out Beasts because in the end, that is what he was. Beastly. An abomination. Snakes, Horses, Wolves, it didn't matter. He felt more a kinship with monsters than he had with those who claimed he was one of them. He was so very, very Sick...

And then he had discovered the reason.

Everything he did or said was a Lie because Loki himself was a Lie.

One giant lie that had infested him. Every word he said was infused with his sickness, dripping with poison. And he had wondered why it was he had never realized this before. He had hoped countless years and centuries to get better, to find the cure to this wrong inside of him so that he could shine with his family, so that he could leave the wicked shadows and share in the sun.

But he was a Master of Truth just as much as he was a Master of Lies, and he could not fool himself. There wasn't something wrong with his mind. There was something wrong with Him. His existence was Wrong, all he was a lie.

Jotun. A people of Cold and Dark and Ice. Frigid and Freezing and Cruel. The enemy. It should have been a relief to find out that he belonged somewhere, that even if he could never fit at Asgard, that he would have a home somewhere else. But as the All-Father had said, he had not even been wanted there. Left to die, Left in the cold, alone and deserted. Abandoned by the ones who should have loved him as a treasure. Stolen as a Lie by his False-Father, raised as a Lie, told Lies, and then once-more abandoned. He should have known, prepared himself for it, but to be betrayed by his family, false as they were, had hurt as nothing else ever had. He really should have realized it long before. The people of Asgard valued Truth. There was a saying somewhere, the Truth always Outs. It had and it had banished the Lie out of its realm.

There was something wrong with him. He had spent half of his life trying to ignore it, another half trying to hide it, and now... now he embraced it.

Because what more could he do? What other option was there for him? What path could he take but the only one. No way back, and to pretend he was anything other than Wrong was a Lie to himself. With no one on his side, no one looking out for him, protecting him, as meagerly as they had, that poison-tongue of his began to fester, rotting him from the inside.

And from that infection grew Rage.

He hated Lies, as much as his mouth kept dripping with them. Before, he had wondered whether he should sew his lips shut, just to stop his disease from spilling onto everything good and right and loved. But he was too angry now to think, to angry to stop, and instead of trying to block his poison, he wanted it to spread...

That was what Thor wouldn't understand, what the All-Father and the Midgard Avengers would never understand. He wasn't evil. The word implied that it was a choice. He was Sick. Sickness spread and it didn't care who it infected. He was the source of a disease that had to run its course, to wipe through Asgard and Midgard and Jotunheimr because it just didn't matter anymore. To keep fighting what he was inside was a Lie. To keep holding to ideals that were not His was a Lie. And Loki refused to lie to himself.

Fury was a short-lived thing for most. It was a fire that burned brightly for a short-time and then crawled back into its embers to calm down. Thor was a flame that sparked and flashed and roared, but did very little to burn and destroy. At the end of the day, His Brother always returned home for comfort to nurse his ego or wounds or pride, and that anger would be gone.

For Loki, his fire was as Sick and Twisted as he was. It burned and burned and burned, and it had no home to crawl back to. He was wanted nowhere, belonged nowhere, and so he would consume everything until there was nothing left. It didn't matter to him. He couldn't care about any of it anymore, he couldn't keep up the lies. He was an Abomination, he was wrong and horrible and his wrath would be just as horrible and wrong.

He started on Jotunheimr , the planet of Ice and Disease and Cold burning from his hatred. And then, when it had been stopped, blocked by the fire of his Brother, he had begun to burn Asgard. It didn't matter to him anymore where it destroyed or who it touched and engulfed. Asgard, Midgard, The Nine Realms... All of it could burn because he didn't have any stake in any of them. He belonged nowhere, so everywhere had no meaning to him.

Then he Fell. An endless, blinding fall through all time and meaning and existence, and it had worsened his sickness. It consumed him until any hint of himself was gone, any part of the lie that was Loki Odinson was gone, erased in the rush of space and life and death. He had seen stars die, stars born, existence come and go like a light. And he had burned everything in his path that he could touch, infesting all of it with his sickness. But eventually, the fall had stopped, and he had finally landed.

With that landing, he had gained a purpose. What was left of Loki was nothing but disease and flame. He wasn't a Son or a Brother or a Friend. He was something wrong to all the things that were right. But that, in itself, was a purpose. He had learned, during a Fall that seemed to span lifetimes, that there was always a Balance to existence. Where there was Right, there had to be Wrong. Good and Evil, Day and Night, Life and Death. And he was something twisted and wrong, and he had to keep Living because there was nothing else for him left.

Thor would say that Loki burned because he was Vengeful. Because he was Angry and Bitter and wanted to hurt his Brother. The rest of The Avengers would say it was because he had Family Problems, that he hadn't been loved as a Child or something ridiculous and insulting. But Loki didn't burn because he had problems. He burned because he Was a Problem. He was Sick and Wrong and it just didn't matter to him anymore. He couldn't hate himself forever, and neither could he love himself. He was as Necessary as he was Unnecessary. He was There and he burned because there was nothing else he could do Right.

So if he couldn't be one of them, if he couldn't be Golden and Beautiful and Perfect, then he would be the Opposite. He would be Silver and Sick and Wrong.

In that, at least, he had a Meaning.


End file.
